Advertising Blurbs

Back of Box - N64 (US):

THE WAR OF THE GODS HAS BEGUN!

Billions of years ago, a Being from a distant galaxy was transporting a precious cargo of life-giving Ore. The turbulent formation of our solar system caused his ship to crash, scattering Ore over the molten surface of Planet Earth. Through the millennia, Ten Humans came into contact with the Ore and were transformed into super-evolved warriors. These are the WarGods.

TRUE 3D environments and movement with the ability to fight and operate weapons in 3 dimensions.

Chomp! Ten brawlers scantily clad in semi-historical finery vie for the source of eternal life in Midway's 3-D tournament fighter.

It seems that way back during the dawn of the solar system, a mysterious visitor from outer space dropped a lode of Ore on earth. Apparently whoever possesses this extraterrestrial elixir gains immortality and impressive fighting moves to boot. In the eons since, the Ore has managed to migrate 'round the earth, finding its way into Egyptian pyramids, icy mountains and Caribbean swamps. Sure enough, 10 of the roughest, toughest beings in history have gotten their hands on the precious stuff. And now they're fighting for more.

UK house Eurocom Developments retained all the arcade fighters in engineering this port to the N64. Originally planned for release in early '97, the game was held up for months as Midway's microcode mavens tweaked the play control.

The extra time was well spent, as the developers took good advantage of the N64's processing muscle to load up the game's artificial intelligence. In One-Player mode, the five difficulty levels are accurately labeled very easy to very hard.

Given the game's pedigree, it should be no surprise that War Gods plays a lot like Midway's classic Mortal Kombat paks. Natch, you got your cool combos and jaw-dropping fatalities. Other options include turning the fatalities off and reconfiguring the Controller buttons. You have a maximum of five continues.

Graphically, War Gods' big selling point is "Digital Skin." Tim Rogers, Eurocom's lead developer for War Gods, describes this technology as a way to motion-capture actors and lay the results on a 3-D model. The result: highly detailed fighters flinging a gaudy array of combos. When Roman gladiator Maximus tosses a net on a rival, for example, you can actually see the ropes swaying as the captive tries to fight out.

Nice use of the N64's alpha-channeling capabilities gives the backgrounds a suitably shadowy look. There's loads of spectacular moves, too. War Gods is the first 3-D fighter for the N64, but a fairly narrow field of combat means that 2-D fight fans won't have a hard time adjusting their strategy. Each combatant has a nifty sideways tumble, though.